Free Republic

A YEAR OF LYING ABOUT NORD STREAMThe Biden administration has acknowledged neither its responsibility for the pipeline bombing nor the purpose of the sabotageI do not know much about covert CIA operations—no outsider can—but I do understand that the essential component of all successful missions is total deniability. The American men and women who moved, under cover, in and out of Norway in the months it took to plan and carry out the destruction of three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea a year ago left no traces—not a hint of the team’s existence—other than the...

More than 140,000 people signed a petition opposing Vladimir Putin's announcement of a partial mobilization in Russia. The Russian-language petition against conscription, titled 'Against partial and total mobilization,' was created on Change.org petition site by a user with pseudonym 'Soft Power.' It says: "On September 21, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the start of partial mobilization throughout Russia. Only those citizens who are in the reserve and, above all, those who served in ranks of the armed forces, have certain military specialties, will be subject to conscription for military service. "We, the citizens of Russia, women and men, oppose general and...

May 27 was a dark day for Ukraine. That was the day Lyman, the last free town north of the Donets River in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas River, finally fell to Russian forces. Capturing Lyman helped the Russian army to consolidate its position in Donbas and secure supply lines across the region. Lyman was a domino. As it fell, it knocked down Severodonetsk, the last free city east of the Donets. And as Severodonetsk fell, it toppled Lysychansk, its twin city on the opposite side of the river. Nearly four months later, the dominos are falling in the opposite direction. A...

Putin's commanders have begun quietly fleeing Crimea as they try to sell their homes and get their families back to Russia, Ukrainian spies have claimed. Russian FSB agents and those working for the occupying government are also trying to get off the peninsula, which has been occupied by Kremlin forces since 2014. Officials have been spooked by the rapid advance of Ukrainian forces across the north of the country in recent days, the military intelligence service added, amid reports that soldiers are withdrawing from Melitopol - just 70 miles away.

Russia has "strategically lost" the war in Ukraine and is a "more diminished power", the head of the UK's armed forces has said. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said Vladimir Putin had lost 25% of Russia's land power for only "tiny" gains. And while Russia may achieve "tactical successes" in the coming weeks, he said any notion the war had been a success was "nonsense". Admiral Radakin, who is the UK's chief of defence staff, said Russia was running out of troops and advanced missiles and would never be able to take over all of Ukraine. -snip- Admiral Radakin said: "This...

Ukrainians have shared pictures of a burning Russian fighter jet they say was shot out of the sky in the Kharkiv region as Putin's forces continue to take heavy damages. Photos from the scene remains of Russian fighting aircraft Su-35 believed to have been hit by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It is understood the plane was shot down by the anti-aircraft missile troops of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who shared footage of the incident online. The Su-35, a hi-tech fighter jet worth an estimated £30million, was reduced to rubble. It is understood the plane was...

The images of bodies lining the streets in a town outside of Kyiv have sparked horror in Ukraine and beyond. Meanwhile, efforts to evacuate residents from Mariupol continue to stall. DW has the latest. Images reveal mass graves and bodies lining streets in towns outside Kyiv Residents say departing Russian troops are killing civilians A Red Cross evacuation mission hopes to reach Mariupol later on Sunday This article was last updated at 11:09 GMT/UTC. EU Council President accuses Russia of massacre in Bucha Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, blamed Russia for "atrocities" committed in Bucha on...

Given Russia's reliance on Ukraine for military components, UK defence sources say Russia's war effort is in serious trouble. Last night a source said: 'Serious amounts of components for Russian weapons systems were made there [Ukraine]. That won't be happening any more. 'Russia cannot manufacture this equipment itself or import it, so it won't be getting any of these materials any time soon. The hardware expended in Ukraine came from historic stockpiles, developed when there was greater cooperation between Russia and Ukraine. 'The integration of their industrial complexes meant a severing of relations would jeopardise Russia's ability to sustain military...

More than a month has passed since Russias invasion and the Ukrainian Army is now on the offensive in the Kherson region. An attack on the Russian-held city of Kherson is expected within a week.

A Ukrainian official says the country’s military will retake Kherson — the first major city Russia’s troops captured — later today. Markian Lubkivskyi, an adviser to the Ukrainian defense minister tells the BBC: “I believe that today the city will be fully under the control of Ukrainian armed forces. “We have finished in the last two days the operation in the Kyiv region so other armed forces are now focused on the southern part trying to get free Kherson and some other Ukrainian cities,” he says, according to Sky News.

Russian precision-guided missiles are failing up to 60% of the time in Ukraine, three US officials with knowledge of intelligence on the issue told Reuters, a possible explanation for the poor progress of Russia's invasion. Since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russia has failed to achieve basic objectives such as neutralizing Ukraine's air force despite a vastly larger armed forces. The US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information, did not provide evidence to support the assessment and did not disclose what precisely was driving high Russian...

Russia has lost another of its generals in the war in Ukraine, Kyiv military sources said, as Ukraine inflicts punishing losses on Moscow's war machine. Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, 48, commander of the army's 49th combined arms division, became the fifth general to be killed after being taken out in a strike by the Ukrainian armed forces, sources in Kyiv said. Rezantsev, who bragged on just the fourth day of the war that it would be over in a matter of hours, was apparently killed after the Ukrainian army destroyed the commanding post of the 49th Russian Army in southern...

Michigan's attorney general urged President Trump to wear a face mask when he visits the state Thursday to tour a Ford Motor Co. plant and to adhere to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's coronavirus executive order, telling the commander in chief that he has a "legal responsibility" to follow the law. Dana Nessel, a Democrat, penned an open letter to Trump Wednesday asking him to follow the face-covering policy of Ford Motor Co. and of the state of Michigan. Trump has not been pictured wearing a face mask in public and said he's taking hydroxychloroquine, an unproven COVID-19 drug, as a preventative...

President Donald Trump has claimed he will finish his prescription for a controversial drug in a bid to prevent coronavirus in the next two days. Trump told journalists earlier this week that he had been taking the malaria pill hydroxychloroquine - which he has previously hailed as a 'gift from God' - every day to stave off coronavirius. On Tuesday the 73-year-old told reporters that: 'I think the regimen finishes in a day or two. I think it's two days.' The news the President was taking the drug came despite warnings from his own government that it should only be...

A new excerpt from former White House communications staffer Cliff Sims' new memoir emerged in Vanity Fair, and this one focused on a very special member of President Trump's Team of Vipers: Kellyanne Conway. Sims doesn't appear to be a fan: As I watched Kellyanne in operation over our time in the White House, my view of her sharpened. It became hard to look long at her without getting the sense that she was a cartoon villain brought to life. Her agenda — which was her survival over all others, including the president — became more and more transparent. [Cliff...

WASHINGTON — National Intelligence Director James Clapper is apologizing for telling Congress earlier this year that the National Security Agency does not collect data on millions of Americans. In a letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, Clapper says his answer was “clearly erroneous.” Leaks by NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden have revealed the NSA’s sweeping data collection of U.S. phone records and some Internet traffic every day, though U.S. intelligence officials have said the programs are aimed at targeting foreigners and terrorist suspects overseas. Clapper was asked in March if the NSA gathered “any type of data at...